Ireland day 1544. Saturday 20 December 2025- Cabbage

Today’s summary	A Malahide-based day. Dealt with some admin and helped jump start a neighbour’s car in the morning. Then had cooked breakfast which also served as lunch. Afterwards, went on a quick walk round the Demesne with Val then on to the shops to get some essentials. Later in the afternoon I made some braised red cabbage with apple, for Christmas. Went for dinner at the Grand Hotel with Val in the evening.
Today’s weather	Showers in the morning with some bright spells. More persistent rain and wind in the evening. Strong south easterly wind. Appx 9c.

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The blue line shows where we walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Before the Cabbage

Commentary

My contribution to Christmas this year is to make the cabbage. Yes I know that this sounds like a pretty low-level job but to a mageirocophobe (look it up – I did) like me, it’s pretty daunting. So obviously I put it off as long as possible but finally today I could do so no longer.

Fortunately though, I had some admin to sort out first thing, and then one of our neighbours dropped by to plead for help jump-starting his car. So all this took most of the morning and once I’d finished, it was almost time for lunch. At this point, Val pulled together a delicious cooked breakfast – bacon egg and beans – which doubled up as lunch, too.

After a suitable digestive pause, we decided to go on a quick walk round the Demesne – our go-to activity when we’re trying to put something off. Any excuse for a delay suited me – and anyway I realised that I needed some extra key ingredients for my cooking, so could tack on a shopping trip at the end.

Finally, I was back in the flat and even the temptations of tea couldn’t defer things any longer. So I started cooking my cabbage.

Actually it wasn’t just any cabbage, it was Saint Delia’s braised cabbage with apple. So I spent the next hour – yes an hour – chopping up the cabbage, dicing garlic and onions and apples, adding spices vinegar sugar butter salt and pepper and carefully layering it all in a casserole dish. The clearing up afterwards took almost as long as the preparation and then the braising part a further three hours in the oven at 150c.

Anyway I was quite pleased with my creation and I’m looking forward to seeing how it turns out when it eventually deports itself from the oven.

Right now, as my cabbage braises (I’m not actually sure what braising is, to be honest), I’m going to enjoy a pre-prandial glass of Rioja then make myself look beautiful. Val and I have decided to treat ourselves to dinner at the newly refurbished Grand Hotel and I want to look at least semi decent.

Come back tomorrow for a full report!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


By a peculiar juxtaposition of sun and rain, as we lay in bed this morning having our cups of tea, brilliant sun from the east streamed through our bedroom window as a local shower poured down on Malahide. Watching the shadow of the rain droplets running down the pane, cast on the wardrobe door at the foot of the bed, was really quite mesmerising	Watch out arteries, here comes lunch

Cricket pitch looking quite wintry. Actually it doesn’t really feel wintry here at all at the moment – just cool and very wet	Very wet indeed, actually. There is water quite literally everywhere

Here we are, enjoying the delights of the Demesne car park	Malahide Castle, impassive as always

The result of my labours!